SERBIA DISSIDENTS VOTE CONSTITUTION

By CHUCK SUDETIC, Special to The New York Times

Published: September 14, 1990

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Sept. 13—
Ethnic Albanian members of the dissolved Parliament of the Yugoslav region of Kosovo met clandestinely last week and adopted an alternative constitution for the region, the Yugoslav press agency reported today.

The members also voted to extend the mandates of Kosovo's Parliament and administration until new elections are held, the report said.

Serbia's government effectively annulled the autonomy of Kosovo, which has a 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority, when it officially dissolved the region's Parliament on July 5 and took over direct political control. Ethnic tensions in Kosovo have grown considerably more bitter since then. The Serbian government is drafting a new constitution for the republic.

Thousands of ethnic Albanians have been laid off or suspended from their jobs for refusing to cooperate with Serbian government attempts to establish control over the region's woefully inefficient enterprises.

An Independent Republic

The alternative constitution speaks of a sovereign Kosovo republic that is independent of Serbia but is a fully-fledged member of the Yugoslav federation, the report says. The constitution reportedly designates Albanian as Kosovo's official language but recognizes the right of the region's Serbs and Turks to use their mother tongues.

The 111 parliamentary representatives who secretly adopted the alternative constitution number more than two-thirds of the dissolved Parliament and included Muslim Slavs and Turks, the report says. The representatives reportedly consider the constitution effective immediately.

In a statement this evening, Serbia's government condemned the alternative constitution as illegal and a serious threat to Yugoslavia's security.

Serbs have asserted for years that Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders are separatists who would have the region joined to neighboring Albania.

Leaders of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian opposition confirmed that the parliamentary representatives met and adopted the alternative constitution but had no more information on their activities.

Elsewhere in Kosovo, two ethnic Albanians were shot dead and two policemen were wounded today in a five-hour gun battle that erupted near the town of Podujevo during a police search for caches of illegal weapons, a Serbian police statement said.